Tag: Adblocking

Are you running an ad blocker? If not, chances are you will be using one in 2016. According to a PageFair/Adobe report about 16 percent of users in the U.S. block ads. Globally, there are nearly 200 million people stopping ads, 181 million of whom are on desktop computers.

Almost $22 billion in global ad revenues were blocked in 2015, that accounts for approximately 14 percent of all global ad budgets in the U.S. In 2016, the U.S. figure is projected to double.

Savvy adults are becoming more protective of their privacy, and are becoming increasingly annoyed with ads obscuring web content. Ads are also slowing down web page load times and no one likes that. But don’t take my work for it, take a look at Google Trends chart below and see how search terms for adblock tools are rising.

But who is using adblock software anyway?

Men are 48% more likely than women to use adblock plug-ins when browsing Tweet This!

Mostly millennials and 18-29 year olds, 41% of whom claim to use adblock software

In 2015, Apple announced support for content and ad blocking in iOS 9. As such, iOS ad blockers raced up the App Store charts. Two of the most popular iOS blockers in Apple’s ecosytem have been Crystal and Purify Blocker. Both block ads and user tracking, while Purify Blocker also blocks images, fonts and scripts.

On desktops, it’s Google Chrome, not Apple’s Safari, that has been driving most of the adblock growth. Ad block use on Google’s browser increased 51% from Q2 2014 to Q2 2015, reaching 126 million average monthly active users. Consider the irony, since online advertising accounts for 90% of Google’s revenue today.